A Tale of Two Islands - Papey

My time in Iceland was spent working on the LOMVIA project studying guillemots – more on this in a later blog – and naturally this meant working in seabird colonies. During the month I was part of the team working across three different sites: Langanes on the mainland and two offshore islands. Langanes was an enjoyable site, but it is the two islands in which our work was primarily focused. First up was Papey Island.

Papey is a fairly flat island covered in low-lying vegetation, but in some areas it raised up enough to provide the perfect cliff habitat for our study species - guillemots.

Although we were working with Brunnich’s and common guillemots it would’ve been impossible to not take in the wildlife across the island. Sightings such as red-throated diver chicks, snow bunting, harlequin duck and multiple waders were on this island but where it really excelled was the seabirds.

A perfect habitat for waterfowl, waders and seabirds all in one location.

In my time working as a seabird ecologist the species people are most interested in is the puffin. This is understandable, given their endearing yet slightly comical look, bright colouration, and clumsiness on the ground and energetic activity in the air (they are built primarily for life on and in the water after-all) and there are places to see them in vast numbers around the UK.

Puffin.

However, puffins generally increase in number the further north you go, and so the populations in Iceland are massive by comparison. By working on Papey I was lucky enough to spend my time on an island that is home to 130,000 puffins! When seen wheeling around in the air in just one part of the island the scale of the population was quite spectacular.

No photo can truly capture just how many puffins there were, but the land, air...

...and sea were covered in them.

It wasn’t just the puffins either; kittiwakes and fulmar were present in numbers I haven’t seen the like of before and it was great to spend some time with them as well.

Fulmar covered the grassy ledges all around the island.

Fulmar taking incubation duty.

Kittiwake.

The chicks grew so fast in just the two weeks we were there.

A seabird colony is a busy place!

One species that was a bit more unusual was the black guillemot. These can also be seen around the northern UK coastline, often quite well in harbours. But they were present in large numbers on Papey and we were fortunate enough to even find a couple of breeding sites.

Black guillemots with their distinctive white wing patch, black belly and red feet.

Black guillemot chicks; unusual for this family of seabirds in that they lay two eggs and not the usual one.

Of course it would be impossible to work on a seabird island and not mention the best species of all – the razorbill! My personal favourite was present on Papey as well and are always a joy to see.

Razorbills :)

Of course, I wasn’t there to study razorbills but their close relative the guillemots.

Common guillemot and razorbill.

Papey was a joy to work on. The terrain was a nice pace to walk around, getting to the cliff colonies, even on islets only accessible at low-tide, was a simple practise and most importantly the birds themselves were great to work with.

The terrain on Papey was one of the most pleasant of my experiences working on offshore islands!

Islet accessed at low-tide was simple enough to get to and work on as well.

We were fortunate as well in that there are a couple of houses on Papey and although they are not permanently lived in they are extremely well kept and made our stay there much more comfortable than many a seabird island I have worked on.

Not all islands can be so simple to work on and comfortable to stay on though…